Do you have any idea what you will be doing in 2019? If you haven’t started to think about it, now is as good a time as any.
According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, “Goals are an important component to achieving success in any endeavor, including the world of business. Goals serve as a guide to keep you on course when times get tough, and prevent you from becoming distracted by unimportant matters. Goals also provide benefits in areas like planning, motivation and the attainment of rapid results.”
However, simply setting a goal is not enough. In fact, how you set it is also important. Your goals need to be “S.M.A.R.T.”
SMART is an acronym that you can use to guide your goal setting.
Its criteria are commonly attributed to Peter Drucker’s Management by Objectives concept. The first known use of the term occurs in the November 1981 issue of Management Review by George T. Doran. Since then, Professor Robert S. Rubin (Saint Louis University) wrote about SMART in an article for The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He stated that SMART has come to mean different things to different people, as shown below.
To make sure your goals are clear and reachable, each one should be:
Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
Achievable (agreed, attainable).
Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).
Now is the time to set your goals, so that you can have a plan in place to attain them. After all, January is only six weeks away.
David Specht is editor and publisher of the Minden Press-Herald.